hackinSTACK

I’ve learned recently that good security testing is all too often a shadow of a larger skillset - good debugging knowledge. Because of this I’ve been following many more of the blogs of individuals on the Windows debugging and advanced troubleshooting teams and learning more about the tools they use to peer deeply into applications and systems.

Two of the programs which come up often in their troubleshooting are WinDBG and Process Explorer. Having used each extensively over the last few months I noticed a cool new (to me at least) feature in Process Explorer tonight and thought I would share it - this is the DEP and ASLR status tags.

To enable the identification tabs right-click on the column headings in the main window. This brings up a menu which allows you to select the appropriate tags…

Now you can quickly identify running programs having these features enabled. This is very similar to the information from David Maynor’s LookingGlass utility. (whose link seems to come and go in my bookmarks)

I prefer to have less applications that are more universally powerful than having to download a hundred different software utilities, each with specialized tasks, but YMMV.

I will start this by saying I am no audiophile…

I am however, in search of a good audio experience across a wide range of listening preferences. (movies, television, some background music for the occasional house party, etc…) So last night I began my installation/upgrade of my home theater system. The first part consists of putting in new in-ceiling speakers. The condo came with the wiring already run for a surround system, which is pretty nice. But, without having heard a decent set of speakers in about 10 yrs I started by looking around at what was affordable and offered good quality.

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Illinois had an earthquake this morning and I actually felt it! So I’m no longer an “earthquake virgin” as my father so eloquently put it. Here is the quick rundown of what it felt like from my humble little place here in Chicago.

4:40am… I woke up to the bed “jiggling” a little. Normally the cat will do this when he attempts to sharpen his claws on the side of it. I hollered over for him to stop in my half-fog of sleep and heard him jerk his head up - only problem was that I realized he was across the room on top of a box instead of being at the foot of my bed. At this point I noticed the closet doors were rattling in their hinges and I started to think something might not quite be right. Normally large semi’s will rattle the place a little bit when they pass by, but this lasted about 10-20 seconds too long for that. That was the point where I said to myself - “holy crap! we just had an earthquake!” I flipped on the news, but nothing showed up for 10-15mins, so I went back to bed…

Turns out it *was* a 5.2M earthquake centered in southern Ill. Pretty exciting for a Friday morning. I filled out my report at the USGS site and according to their data so far my experience was typical for the area.

FUN STUFF!!!

I’ve started to get settled into the new place and found a nice little surprise today. Below is a picture of a speed test I ran on my Comcast cable connection. The results were quite interesting. At first I thought there was a problem with the way they calculated the speed, but after a couple more tests with my friends connection and the connection at my office, it looks pretty accurate.

Updates have been lacking lately as I’ve packed most of my life into boxes and have been concentrating on finalizing the condo closing. Everything should be signed tomorrow afternoon and the weekend will be spent moving. I won’t have internet access till it is installed next week, but then again I will probably be too tired to do anything anyway, so nobody is really missing much. Expect content to make a grand return once everything is settled at the new place and I’ve had the chance to setup an honest-to-goodness home office again.